


Little Brother

by armored_alchemist



Series: Agape [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Father Figure, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Loss of time, M/M, Mental Ward, Occasional Vulgar Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychiatrist Hughes, Roy and Alphonse are deceased, Roy is not a good person, absent father, deceased mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 14:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13929414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armored_alchemist/pseuds/armored_alchemist
Summary: The raven-haired man sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose."Listen, Edward, or Alphonse, or whoever you are today - I'm going to tell you something you won't like. If I thought you were beyond help I would treat you as such, but from time to time I see moments of clarity in your eyes. I'm going to take a chance and run with it here, alright? So bear with me as I attempt to reinstate your sanity."And please - " he adds, gesturing to the shattered water glass surrounding his feet, "try to refrain from any more of that."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's like a sort of remix of Closure. I was extremely unhappy with the end result of Closure so I decided to do something similar but with a little extra spice. Maybe. I probably won't be satisfied with this one, either...
> 
> Enjoy!

My eyes open and I am again on a bed. My eyes instinctively close against the blinding light above me, and to the sides, and all around me.

I may be a child just being born - not sure...can't remember - so I take a few moments to breathe deeply and calmly, wrinkling my nose in response to the horrid smell of over-sterilization. This must be a hospital, then. No other place smells like it. I wonder how I know that, and then I remember all the nights I spent by my brother's side, watching him sleep softly on a white bed with metal sewn onto his fragile human body, and I know my identity. 

I hear the opening of a door. Slowly my eyes reopen and I see the raven haired man whom I've longed to love me for far too long. 

"Mr. Van Hessler!" 

I almost cry with relief because he came to see me! He must have realised, with that disgusting, piece of shit brother of mine where he belongs - next to Mother, no less - that I was the one he really loved all along. I scramble off the bed with all the strength I can muster. I fully intend to meet him at the door in a passionate embrace rivalling any of the whores at his mother's brothel, but the ground rushes up to meet me before I can even take my first step. My palms land smack on the tile to prevent my face from doing likewise and I wonder why my right hand has been covered in plastic. 

"Whoa, there!" The man helps me off my hands and knees and leads me to bed, where i 'm laid back. "Excited to see me, huh?"

"Roy, why has your voice changed? Have you changed it so brother won't recognize you? You don't have to!" I said, my voice rising in pitch as a grin spread across my face. 

I curiously watch him as he writes on a paper attached to a clipboard. He mutters something about a 'native tongue'. Then he lifts his head up. "Edward, do you know who I am?"

"What?"

"I said, Edward, do you know who I am?"

I only stare at him, hurt etched on my expression, based on what others have told me.

"You don't even recognise me?" I question him, upset.

"Edward: that is your name, isn't it?"

I spit on him. Quite literally. He removes his glasses to clean them and I then spit my words at him venomously. "Edward is dead."

"Well, then." He makes more notes on his clipboard. "My apologies. What is your name?"

It's as if he's never met me. I know I used to look like a suit of armor, but I've had this body for a while, haven't I? Or have I...that could be why I seem to be unable to walk. 

"The plastic resin must be a new kind of cast," I continue my thoughts out loud, not exactly realising it. "What with me falling out of bed and such. They change things so often, you know - it's hard to keep up. When we were kids it was simple. Men were men, boys were boys. Now I can't tell what's the real thing anymore." I looked up at the man whose face was long and sporting the beginnings of stubble. "Why change things anyhow? I like things they way they were. Makes more sense, ya know?"

"Of course." He nods. Through my whole spiel he's listened intently, moving his head vertically at all the appropriate spots.

"Are you afraid, Van Hessler? Are you afraid that I'll get mad if you don't nod every time I open my mouth? I'm not my brother, you know, I don't blow up at any sudden inkling of dissonance. I have more self control than that."

At the mention of siblingry he glances up from the notes he's jotting. He searches my eye for something that isn't there. 

"So..." The words come out of his mouth not hesitantly, but deliberately.

Gate, he really does think me a savage...

"Your brother? Who might that be?"

I squint, exasperation blooming fast. "My brother, Roy. You know. The one you fucked, with your hard cock, in his tight little ass. Hmm...did you enjoy it, I wonder? You can't have, or you wouldn't be here with me." I allowed myself a small smile. 

"No, you're right. I didn't enjoy it at all. I endured it. Was it worth it?" Van Hessler asks me.

My eyes and mind go blank. I lose myself for a moment.

Was it...worth it?

"Yes." I snap back, immediately myself again. "The answer is always yes."

"Even if it causes pain?"

"Yes." 

"Even if it causes you pain?"

"Then doubly so," I blurt without batting a lid.

"Is it because of my hair?" After a moment's quiet, the words pop out of my mouth.

As if he never notices the sharp veer in subject matter, he answers my question with another question. "What about it?"

"My hair." I pull chunks of it up between the two of us as material evidence, stringy and far longer than I prefer. "They won't let me get it cut. It's so long. It's repulsive. Look at it!" I yank it, and myself in the process, closer to Van Hessler, all but shoving it down his throat.

He takes the flaxen fibers in his large hand, caressing them with the tenderness of a father's touch. His gaze softens. "Edward, there's nothing wrong with your hair. It's beautiful -"

I slam my hand down on the bedside table, sending various items flying - including a water glass which crashes onto the ground, shattering instantly and dousing Hughes' feet. 

"MY NAME IS NOT EDWARD! DO NOT ADDRESS ME BY THAT GROTESQUE APPELLATION!"

He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Listen, Edward, or Alphonse, or whoever you are today - I'm going to tell you something you won't like. If I thought you were beyond help I would treat you as such, but from time to time I see moments of clarity in your eyes. I'm going to take a chance and run with it here, alright? So bear with me as I attempt to reinstate your sanity, and please -" he gestures to the wet mess, "try to refrain from any more of that."

Chest heaving up and down, I keep my mouth shut; partially for my aroused anger not being fully dispelled, and partially for acquiescence.

He understands my silence for what it is. 

"Good. That's good," his demeanor visibly relaxes.


	2. Chapter 2

"Tell me, then," Hughes instructed. "Tell me what this... Alchemy is about."

'It'll take me eons to tell you all of the things I know...' Ed thought.

The boy was caught off guard by the volta. The subject change. The sudden firmness. But also the words; a sort of déjà vu hit him in that moment and temporarily took the blonde's speech.

Since Edward didn't speak, Hughes continued to talk.

"Well, from what you've told me during your more sober moments, alchemy involves two basic concepts: construction and deconstruction. Building things and subsequently taking them apart." 

The corners of the psychiatrist's mouth curled upwards like a wound spring and he leant forward, wagging the pen he'd been using for notes towards his patient. "See, this psychosis, this pretend world of yours - you built it. Built it from the ground up. Now it's time to destroy it."

Ed blinked, disoriented. Why did those words sound so familiar? 

 

A flash of a small boy with pretty, short blonde hair and cupid's face struck his mind. It was strange. He could not remember why the boy was there but that wasn't what unnerved him. The oddity was that the boy was him, Alphonse. Looking at himself as via mirror, yet there was no mirror. So logically, how was he recalling this crystal clear memory of viewing himself face-on?

"See, this psychosis, this pretend world of yours," Alphonse said, smiling, "you built it. Built it from the ground up. Now it's time to destroy it."

 

 

 

The blonde's heart beat faster and breath began to pick up pace as the prelude to panic began seeping through his quickly failing self-defense mechanisms.

"Impossible. I can't build. My heart is broken." 

"What was that? I don't think I quite got that."

"I said my arm is broken. See?" He held the prosthetic right arm up for display. 

"And your heart?"

"In my chest, still pumping torrents of blood as it always has. What of it?"

"Is it broken too?"

"Still beats, doesn't it?"

"Just because it functions in daily life doesn't mean it isn't messed up. Why, studies have shown that when forced into extreme stress, it can become prone to a number of conditions."

"That's bull. Where's your proof? If I'm alive, then I'm alive, whether I really am or not."

The boy face shifted into stoic hardness, but something in his eye... 

"Edward, I think -"

"I think we're done talking, Hughes." And his voice had lost its high pitch and naivete, as well as the edge. Now it slipped out of fantasy worlds where arms were metal and little brothers were steel and sunk back into weary reality where men fucking children was quite frankly -

"Pedophilia. Is that what you want to hear?"

Hughes saw the blatant change, shift, transition into another personality: one who was worn down with far too many memories on his shoulders for such a young man of only nineteen.

The psychiatrist nodded. "If that's what's on your mind."

"No," Ed sighed, "but you just won't let it go. You hang on even worse than I do, and I'm the one who killed him."

While Maes was caught off guard by Ed's sudden open admittance of the secret he'd forced into suppression for years, Ed turned to finally face the psychiatrist in the eye for the first time since Hughes had entered the room that day.

"Maes, I..." He swallowed. "I'm sorry, I know he was your friend...I just, you know, I just couldn't take it anymore. Do you know what it's like? I mean - I miss him, too, sometimes. More than i should. But do you really know what it's like to love and hate someone at the same time?"

Maes Hughes stared at Edward Heiderich, his favorite patient; the one who, when in his right mind, was very kind and intelligent to boot, and a human being he would have gladly accepted as his own son. He also stared at Edward Elric, the boy who had been ruined by a man who had once been everything to him, from crush to comrade in arms to superior officer to best friend. Those myriad feelings ruined because of one small thing that overshadowed all.

"Yes. Yes I do, actually."

Ed inhaled a tiny breath and a droplet fell down his cheek as he blinked. 

"It's me, isn't it? You loved him like I did, and I ruined everything, just like I always do." He thrust his face into his hands and wailed.

"GATE, I WISH I WAS DEAD!"


	3. The In-Between

"You've never committed a sin in your life, child."

He breaks the one rule of a psychiatrist and takes a nineteen year old with a mind ten years prior into his arms, rocking him back and forth - like his father should have - until the crying subsides.

"I'm sowwy," Ed says, like R is too complicated a sound for his mouth to form. "I shouldn't cwy...Ed says I shouldn't cwy..."

"It's alright. I think Ed will understand."

Hughes' mouth is open, preparing more words of comfort, when he's interrupted mid thought.

"Who am I?"

The blonde's eyes dart about the unfamiliar room, trying to figure out how he got here from Roy's bed and wondering why he didn't hear this black-haired man yell when he dropped his glass of water on his feet.

He looks up at Hughes. "Where am I?"

 

Hughes sighs yet again. And he pulls out his pen.


	4. Chapter 4

He looks at his hands. One flesh. One plastic.

 

"Your name is Edward Heiderich," says Hughes.

Ed touches his hair. Long, and more golden than bronze.

"You're currently in the mental ward of Munich Hospital in Germany," he continues, observing Ed's reactions.

Ed touches his eye. Taken by a man he'd rather not remember.

"You were a victim of sexual abuse. Though you were willing, you were a child at the time it occurred and therefore legally unable to give consent. Not to mention, Edward," he pauses, touching the end of his pen to Heiderich's chin, "that man was a veritable fox. He was cunning and willing to do or say whatever necessary to bend his victims to his will."

"Victims?" Says Ed in a voice too small to fill up the whole room.

"Yes, victims. You weren't the first..." But by golly, you made sure you were the last. But he'd never say that. Hughes the friend might. But Hughes the psychiatrist wouldn't dare.

"How many?" Ed asks, voice still hardly above a murmur.

Hughes sighs. 

"Enough." He hates giving bad news.

The clock ticks and Ed almost wonders why only one of his cheeks is salted. Then he remembers why, and how, and the resentment bubbles up in his throat like acid.

"You mean, all this..." Edward gestures to the eyepatch, then to the numerous scars lacing his wrists and elsewhere, then to the bruises on his upper thigh and neck. Hughes watches the boy's hands everywhere they go, intently observing his patient's second real reaction since the latest psychotic break. 

"All this, and I'm not even his favorite?"

He looks at Hughes, begging the older man for an answer. For denial. For acceptance. For love. 

"That awful man never loved you. Not an ounce. Any decent human being knows how to love without violence."

Ed's face falls into a sort of hurt pout before he looks back up at his caretaker. "Do..do you..." He's afraid to ask; averts his eyes.

Ed returns his eyes to his right shoulder at the comforting hand Hughes places there. 

"Of course I love you, Edward. I love you in the same fashion as I do every one of my patients. I understand what sort of pain you've endured and how fragile you are, and I'm here to take care of you until you're able to take care of yourself." 

He shakes his head amusedly. "And no, I won't abandon you like your father did. You don't have to ask. It's swimming in your eyes."

Swimming...

"Hey, uh, Hughes?" The name comes out hesitantly, as if this is the first time he's ever spoken it. And it is. "When I get better - maybe not all the way better, but sort of better - can I go swimming with Al? He'd want to see me, I think. I don't know how long I've been here but when we were young we used to be close; really, really close. He probably misses me."

"Probably?"

"Well yeah," Ed corrects, "he misses me. We hung out every night."

"Every night?" Hughes is probing for answers.

"Yeah, every night, every day, every hour. It was us against the world, y'know?"

"What sort of things did you two do together, besides swimming? Did you study together? Or perhaps you played rugby. Lots of young boys play rugby."

"Uh, chess." Ed shrugs nervously, as if playing something serious off as nothing. "Yeah, it's weird, I know, but this dumb arm is a little hard to control. Though we did spar sometimes. Chess is more of a mind game, and boy...do I love mind games."

Hughes sighs, jotting notes on his clipboard. "You're all about double entendres today, aren't you, Elric," he mutters to himself.

"Who told you that?" Ed demands. "Who said that name?"

"You did. On many of your psychotic breaks you spoke perfect English and kept insisting your name was Edward Elric and that you were an officer of the military. A major, in fact - or State Alchemist, depending on the day of the week."

"My - well I - that's my mother's name. Trisha Elric. Patricia Sue Elric."

Hughes nods knowingly, saying, "It's in your files, which I've read and reread thoroughly. Your mother passed away when you were 9. Your father, off on many a boat trip to North America for his various studies concerning the sciences. And, though he kept it a secret for many years, alchemy."

"Yeah, he left us alone so he could go satisfy his need to go on wild goose chases." Ed's voice isn't bitter when speaking of his father, for once.

"Does that offend you?"

"Not really. It gave me more time with Roy."

"And your brother," pushes Hughes.

Ed is silent.

"Edward? What's the matter? Don't you like to spend time with your brother?"

The whole room is quiet except for the soft clicking of heels, rolling of carts, and occasional deranged shriek from the outside hall. When Ed finally speaks the sounds he makes are so, so small.

"No. I...don't."

Hughes furrows his brow and lattices his fingers, leaning in like the teachers taught him to do when drawing information out of a patient. 

"Why is that? You just said you two were close."

"Too close," Ed mouths, but Hughes doesn't catch it.

"But if you were so close, then why wouldn't you want to spend time with him? Surely Alphonse didn't do something to upset you."

The boy's eyes widened as he grabbed ahold of Hughes' collar. Ed pulls him close not out of anger, but out of desperation. Stricken with a sudden desperate need that Maes - the only person who loved him and didn't touch him - a need that Maes understand.

"Oh God, he..he did things to me, Maes.."


	5. Chapter 5

Ed's POV

How could you hurt me, Alphonse?

 

"Check-ers...Playing ch-ch-checkers.."  Like _broken_ english, my confession was disjointed.

"Yes?" The psychologist he was, Hughes probed me, knowing I was on the verge of a massive issue far more important than Roy van Hessler.

One thing i never, ever told anyone: I never saw beauty. 

I saw escape.

"He....h-he -" 

I hiccupped, then took a breath so large it lifted my entire body, much like the lifting of body off mattress at the disconnection of a kiss.

"Ohh....he did things..." Shudders wracked my body. My face contorted into such pain I'm sure Hughes must have felt at least a small pang of it himself in the form of sympathy. "Oh, god, he d-did things to me, doctor."

Once? No.

Hughes nodded. "Yes, yes he did, Edward. I'm glad you un-"

"UNDERSTAND?!" 

It came out as a shriek even I didn't know I was capable of. His white coat's collar was already in my hands and I pushed him away from me so hard he had to frantically grab the table so as not to fall off his stool.

I whispered. "Not Roy. Not Roy."

My babysitter's words slowed as he processed, or tried to, what I was saying. "What - What are you saying, Edward?" 

Oh, but he already knew or his voice wouldn't be so apprehensive. See, this time he was the one running. And they wonder why I built a pretend world.

My lip trembled. "I like the way..." 

I shook my head. Wrong. I must start from the beginning.

Oh, no no no...please, not the beginning. I can't handle the beginning... Please, I can't.

I shook my head again. No, I have to. 

"L-look, I might be crazy, okay? But it's how I make sense of things. And even though I'm frightened of being hurt, i don't wanna be like this forever, you know? I miss the days when I knew what fucking day of the week it was and what my name is."

Hughes merely nodded, remaining silent to allow room for me to vent the shit clogging my veins and clouding my thoughts.

I thought of a small blonde boy with cupid's face and remembered the kind, sweet, innocent person he was before the monster bloomed in him like a flower opening at night.

 

But then I realized something.

"He always was a monster, always, always, always," I said quietly, crying a little. "I've been lying to myself." 

Love. What is it? Do I even know? The men in the white coats say I'm clueless about the subject, but based on all I've been subjected to, I beg to differ. 

There are four types. That's not too much to ask of me. I can at least rattle off that many. 

 

Eros: Semblance of beauty. Sexual passion. Of course, that's for granted.

Storge: unconditional love for family. God, yes.

 

"You'd think you're god. Are you god, Ed?"  Words from the late Roy van Hessler.

 

"I'm not..." I began slowly, replying to my thoughts.

 

"Not what, Edward?" Hughes asked in a soft voice.

 

"God...but he's certainly mine."

 

A pause. Then he asked me, "Who?"

When did you stop calling me big brother? When did you stop worshipping me? When did I stop being your idol? 

 

"Can I hug you?" I asked him. He acquiesced.

"I like the way Roy made me feel. He held me, much like I'm holding you now, Hughes." I spoke with perfect clarity, tired and nearly drained of emotion. "I felt safe. He gave me the sense of security I'd never had. He held me close and...I knew nothing would happen to me."

I've been lying to myself.

Did I ever love Roy? Him as his own human being? Him as a kind father figure who bestowed upon me affection? Him as a dead sexy older man who satisfied my every hormonal need? 

Did I love Roy o _r did I love his protection?_

Hughes patted my back like he'd seen van Hessler do. "Go on."

"He told me many times that he saw beauty in things that others did not, such as my prosthetic arm and leg. 

"But I...I never saw beauty. I saw an escape. He was a light at the end of a dark tunnel that I'd previously seen no way out of."

"What happened before he came? What was he protecting you from?"

"Checkers," popped out of my mouth before I could stop myself. But I didn't want to stop myself. I trusted Maes. Maes would not hurt me, yes?

 

 

 

 

_flashback---_

 

The bronze-haired boy arched his back and sighed contentedly, having found his release.

 

The other boy, however, the one with the golden eyes? A different story altogether. Wet crimson trickled onto his bare skin, but it wasn't his blood. His mouth hung open in horror and the whites of his eyes contrasted the room lit only by soft moonlight from an unobscured window.

 

The first boy slowly slid himself off the boy below him, moaning lewdly at the feeling of his brother exiting him. His small body glistened with a sheen of sweat that would be more expected on two loveswept teenagers.

 

The other boy, however, the one who hadn't come, stared at his nine-year-old brother - who, like a spoiled child, had taken what he wanted when it was denied him. 

 

"B-b-" the bronze-haired child couldn't even use the word once so familiar. It seemed inappropriate.

 

"Big brother?" Alphonse said, though it tasted foreign on his tongue. His eyes that of an innocent doe. "You..you're not mad, are you?" He shook his head, frowning contritely. "I don't know what I'd do if you were mad at me..."

 

He leaned over Edward's naked frame laid spreadeagle on a sheetless bed, his face inches from his older brother's. Ed tried in vain to shy away from him. 

 

"Could you find it in your heart to forgive me?"

 

His lips found their way to Ed's cheek and he kissed it sweetly. Then they moved fluidly over his jawline, strong and defined even at so young. Alphonse inhaled deeply, almost emitting a soft moan as his lips ghosted over then skin of the boy's soft, sweet neck, and he parted his moist lips and opened his mouth slightly so he could tug and nibble on the boy's ear lobe.

 

Al's voice deepened subtly, so his next words came across as sultry and smooth like honey. 

 

"Oh Edward, I don't think I'd be able to live with myself if you didn't."

 

 

\-- __end __of flashback--

 

 

I lifted my head and looked at Hughes, his face twisted into the very picture of pain and sympathy and sorrow. 

 

Maybe because I'd been mimicking the voices of my flashback. And..some of the actions too. Poor Hughes, on the receiving end, having to hear me speak that horror in his ear. But he needed to know. I need closure.

I was now not touching him at all, having backed away to give him space. The man had a heart of gold. He must've been disgusted at me.

"Why did you hurt me, Alphonse?" For I'd realised I couldn't use that b-lettered word either. It wasn't appropriate, not now.

When did you stop calling me big brother? When did you stop worshipping me? When did i stop being your idol? When you took the first step across the line that divides sibling and lover; love and jealousy; men and children; life and death.

I love you, Al. Of course i do. I love you - what big brother doesn't?

A moment passed before my emotions gave way and tugged me forward, causing me to throw myself into his open arms, all of their open arms. I allowed myself to be enveloped in a warm, human embrace, to have my tears wiped from my face. To have all grief and fear and sorrow and anger whisked away in an instant, replaced by love. Real love.

 

Of course.

 

 

"Come on, do you forgive me, Ed?" 

 

"Do you forgive me, brother?" 

 

"I wouldn't be able to live with myself if you didn't."

 

 

Everyone was begging me for the same result and at this point, I couldn't tell who was speaking. So I answered all of them.

 

"Of course I forgive you."

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

A new day. A new Ed.

 

 

 

The window is open. Along with the twittering of birds, wind comes in and gently ruffles Ed's hair. He sits there reading his book, completely docile and at peace.

 

 

 

 

"You know," Hughes breaks the silence. "You seem much better."

 

 

"Do I? I feel stable." Ed looks up. 

"I haven't felt stable for awhile," he explains.

 

 

"I didn't wave a magic wand and cure you. What I mean to say is, unfortunately, the DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder, isn't gone. You've still got multiple personalities in that mind of yours."

 

"I know."

 

 

"Do you?"

 

"Yeah. They talk to me, and I talk back. We're on pretty good terms now, actually."

 

"I see. That's good."

 

 

"We made an agreement they don't come out unless I give permission. And they aren't to do anything that'd cause problems for me later."

 

Hughes exhales in relief, because when Edward Heiderich says he'll keep himself in line, he knows Edward Heiderich will keep himself in line. Hughes trusts the young man enough to know that Ed makes good on his promises.

 

 

"Well, I'm glad to see that you're getting along so swimmingly." Notes Hughes.

 

"One of the good memories I have of Al," Ed says, a little choked up, "is of us going swimming with Mom one day. Al picked up all the rocks he could find because he really believed i could do alchemy; he didn't see the shells I hid behind my back. Everyone was smiling and splashing water on each other. I loved them so much. I still do."

 

 

"Why don't you go swimming with your lady friend - oh, what's her name, Winnie? - one day? I'm sure she'd enjoy some sun after being cooped up in that little cottage of hers for so long."

 

Ed smiled a small, regretful smile. "Nah, I can't." He held up his arm. "The wiring, you see..."

 

 

Hughes nods. "Well, at the very least, the both of you could do for a good suntan."

 

"Maybe," Ed says, but at this point in his life he knows it's never going to happen.


	7. [ motherland ]

Ed's POV

 

 

 

 

So I'm alone now. My wife? Yes, I remember her. She's a bit too fond of me for my liking but I'll deal with it for fear of elsewise being sent to the asylum again to spend the rest of my days in that hell. 

The sight of my childhood home had become a nebulous vision in my memory, until i saw it in person once more. I gawked about in childlike wonder. When my eye had its fill, I tolerated and quickly escaped Winry's understandable but smothering embrace. I knew exactly where I belonged and I strode right to it. I sat at the table, dusting off the checkerboard abandoned mid-game. 

I let out the shaky breath I'd been keeping captive since I'd been whisked away and begun my eulogy, my last ode to him.

"Dad didn't goodbye when he left, and that made you sad, but you were happy that we had the apartment to ourselves for a few hours. I always did my best to keep you entertained. We played pretend."

I paused. Tried to steel myself against emotion.

"And we had so much fun Al, we really did. We laughed and giggled. I made us lunch and...And we....." My voice broke with tears, hatred and sacrifice born of love.  "Played checkers together, in the living room.


	8. closure

"And because it made you happy, I let you win every single time."


End file.
